December 19, 2017

The skies don’t seem so dark as before; but rather than soothe, it scares me. In its whole visible extent from where I stand tonight; there’s not a star in sight, and the moon: absent. While I wondered what other occasion made the moon stand me up, the lights went off. Yes, electricity –still happens around here sadly. I mentioned the moon stood me up, we’ve been keeping up appearances in the past few days, basically she shows up in different attires and I take shots. I have her all saved in my memory in full, half, and crescent garments. Not more than fifteen blinks after the darkness enveloped the area, my thoughts halted at the symphony of starting engines that pierced the silent night. In theory, light travels faster than sound as is the case when lightning precedes a thunderstorm. But tonight, the sound of generators welcomed the much needed lights they gave.

What am I doing out here in the night anyway? Let me tell you about it.

I was going home from work after a long day that almost refused to end, (I could bet the second hand of the clock took some anticlockwise turns repeatedly), and there was this thought that refused to leave my mind. The thought practically let itself in and felt at home uninvited. There wasn’t a thing I could do about it – I washed, did dishes, arranged and even slept but it was right there even in my waking moment, so I finally had to say hi. So it’s been making rounds in my head ever since and I’m going to have to talk about it like right now.

No one can or will ever change the world.

I promise you that I fought this thought with everything I had, I took several mental trips down history lane – each time I arrived right back at this mind-boggling thought. This thought seems to stand alone against every hope mantra of making the world a better place that I have known.

If you intend to clothe a few children at the orphanage, do so only after there’s no kid on your street without decent clothes on.

If you’re going to feed a nearby village or community, it would make no sense if someone is dying of hunger at your corridor.

Don’t start an education endowment fund or scholarship for strangers when some of your own people cannot afford school.

As a rule of thumb, don’t go about cleaning the community gutter when your room’s a mess – that’s hypocrisy, showmanship and gross attention-seeking.

It’s been said times over that if everyone cleaned their front yard, the whole town would be clean. Hard to argue against that.

Let’s quit burning an area of land in preparation for Tree-Planting to support a campaign to end global warming. Driving a car that’ll give off fumes to such an event should be criminal, but how evitable is that? As long as we keep up with the sources of our problems, finding solutions will always be beyond reach, a never ending race.

If at least one relative whether near or distant stood up for each child that lost one or both parents, orphanages wouldn’t exist. But it seems to be the way of the world to first create a problem and afterwards begin a never-ending race of finding solutions.
Whatever your grand plans and lofty ideas, let your homefront, your locale be your testing ground. Run your trials there and turn out successful before you unleash on the unsuspecting world.
Nothing ridicules a great speech like dissenting voices of the speaker’s household in the audience.

Without trying to belittle or make light of the efforts of great men and women who have made tremendous impact, I make bold to say none of them has changed the world; and to be quite frank, none of us ever will. At best, our neighborhood will not forget ever. The size and extent or reach of your ‘neighborhood’ will be your own doing, but definitely not the world. As long as one child still gets mutilated, whoever started the campaign against genital mutilation is yet to change the world. If in doubt of this statement, ask the mutilated child. But if many voices were to fight the cause, changing the world might become possible – no single name however will be able to boast of having changed the world.

Imagine what a good shot of you taken by a photographer with you in your best pose ever would look like…what if you then discover in there that your zipper was wide open the whole time, would you still feel proud of that picture? Little pockets here and there matter, but it is in sync with other pockets that sense is made out of them. Alone, not much is to be said. A bucket of water and an ocean are basically the same in terms of water composition save for volume. If the ocean was to be split into its constituent parts, it’ll never be able to boast.

I believe in Jesus as Saviour and that means I believe he is going to change the world. But as of now, its hope, albeit certain hope. Hope, because it is not yet manifested; certain because it will happen. When he was to start this changing the world campaign, here’s what he did – he saved Jews first, his own people and then the rest of the world. Everything was first to the Jews, before the Gentiles. His disciples who were to carry on with the campaign were commanded to tarry at home, preach at home before moving to the ends of the world. If anyone desires world peace, equity, equality, justice, charity; start from your home. That’s how to change the world: home first, then the world.